Michel Micombero

Michel Micombero (1940-16 July 1983) was President of Burundi from 28 November 1966 to 1 November 1976, preceding Jean-Baptiste Bagaza.

Biography
Michel Micombero was born in 1940 in Rutovo, Bururi Province, Ruanda-Urundi to a family of Tutsis. In 1962, he graduated from the Royal Military Academy of Belgium and became Minister of Defense in 1965, rallying the military against Gervais Nyangoma's Hutu coup plotters and leading attacks on Hutus across the country in response to anti-Tutsi massacres. On 28 November 1966, when the monarchy of Burundi was finally overthrown, Micombero became the first president of Burundi, although he ruled for almost ten years. Micombero supported socialism and received assistance from China during the Cold War, and in 1972 he had Ntare V of Burundi executed after Tutsi unrest broke out in 1972, taking steps against Tutsi rivals and killing 100,000 Hutus in the 1972 Burundian Genocide. In 1976, Jean-Baptiste Bagaza ousted him in a coup and forced him into exile in Somalia, where he died of a heart attack in his sleep in 1983.